A file photo of an outcropping of mummified tree remains on Ellesmere Island in Canada. Moss exposed by melting glacial ice in central Ellesmere Island returned to life in a study first published April 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Ohio State University, Joel Barker)

400-year-old Plants Spring Back to Life

400-year-old plants: In a glacier in northern Canada, researchers discovered that moss entombed in glacial ice for about 400 years could be brought back to life.

The moss was encased in ice during the Little Ice Age of 1550–1850 AD. Since 2004, glacial ice has been rapidly retreating in the region, uncovering much plant life thought to be completely dead, explains the study abstract, posted on the U.S. National Academy of Sciences website on May 22, 2013.

The plants “have remarkable species richness,” states the abstract.

That the moss sample, taken from Sverdrup Pass, central Ellesmere Island, returned to life shows a great resiliency in non-vascular plants, known as bryophytes. It expands scientists’ understanding of the role bryophytes have played in the past, or could play in the future, in regenerating polar ecosystems.

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